Personally I'm finding it quite hard to get excited about the first of Gordon Ramsay's new gastropubs.

The Narrow sounds nice enough: Grade II-listed building on the banks of the Thames; faithfully restored and stylishly decked out; posh bit upstairs and boozier bit downstairs, with a good concise, harking-back-to-British-classics menu (devilled lamb's kidneys on toast and Rye Bay plaice with Morecambe brown shrimps).

It's just the proprietor I have a problem with. The only time I've ever really warmed to him was when he reawarded the old bloke working at the tired seaside hotel with his role as chef flambe on Kitchen Nightmares - I was so warmed in fact that I shed a few tears.

But the incessant publicity, the cardboard cut-out in Thresher's, the fondness he has for taking his shirt off and the fact he gave himself a £2.1 million bonus recently all grates a tad.